William Buckland

“ Mark where it is that a Newton finally reposes after piercing the thickest veil that envelopes nature—grasping and arresting in their course the most subtle of her elements and the swiftest—traversing the regions of boundless space—exploring worlds beyond the solar way—giving out the law which binds the universe in eternal order! ”

“ Why should we pronounce it impossible that there should be bodies formed to endure the burning sun, to whom fire maybe the natural element, whose bones and muscles are composed of fixed earth, their blood and juices of molten metals? ”

“ The satellites that turn the night of Jupiter into day, assist him in ascertaining the longitude, and measuring the velocity of light: the mighty sun, that like a giant holds the planets and comets in their orbits, enlightens him with its splendour, and cherishes him with its warmth: the distant stars, whose attraction probably confines other planets within their vortices, direct his course over the boundless sea, and the inhospitable desert."—Tucker's Light of Nature, book iii. ”

“ Thus, from the wreck of forests that waved upon the surface of the primeval lands, and from ferruginous mud that was lodged at the bottom of the primeval waters, we derive our chief supplies of coal and iron; those two fundamental elements of art and industry, which contribute more than any other mineral production of the earth, tot increase the riches, and multiply the comforts, and ameliorate the condition of mankind. ”

“ The history of the earth forms a large and complex subject of inquiry, divisible at its outset, into two distinct branches; the first, comprehending the history of unorganized mineral matter, and of the various changes through which it has advanced, from the creation of its component elements to its actual condition; the second, embracing the past history of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and the successive modifications which these two great departments of nature have undergone, during the chemical and mechanical operations that have affected the surface of our planet. ”

“ If I understand Geology aright, (says Professor Hitchcock,) so far from teaching the eternity of the world, it proves more directly than any other science can, that its revolutions and races of inhabitants had a commencement, and that it contains within itself the chemical energies, which need only to be set at liberty, by the will of their Creator, to accomplish its destruction. Because this science teaches that the revolutions of nature have occupied immense periods of time, it does not therefore teach that they form an eternal series. ”

“ No reasonable man can doubt that all the phenomena of the natural world derive their origin from God; and no one who believes the Bible to be the word of God, has cause to fear any discrepancy between this, his word, and the results of any discoveries respecting the nature of his works; but the early and deliberative stages of scientific discovery are always those of perplexity and alarm, and during these stages the human mind is naturally circumspect, and slow to admit new conclusions in any department of knowledge. ”

“ Few persons are aware of the nature of the evidence, upon which we have at length arrived at a certain and satisfactory conclusion, respecting the long disputed question as to the vegetable origin of Coal. It is not infrequent to find among the cinders beneath our grates, traces of fossil plants, whose cavities having been filled with silt, at the time of their deposition in the vegetable mass, that gave origin to the Coal, have left the impression of their forms upon clay and sand enclosed within them, sharp as those received by a cast from the interior of a mould. ”

“ The whole course of the inquiry which we have now conducted to its close, has shown that the physical history of our globe, in which some have seen only Waste, Disorder, and Confusion, teems with endless examples of Economy, and Order, and Design; and the result of all our researches; carried back through the unwritten records of past time, has been to fix more steadily our assurance of the Existence of One supreme Creator of all things, to exalt more highly our conviction of the immensity of his Perfections, of his Might, and Majesty, his Wisdom, and Goodness, and all sustaining Providence ”

“ Let us cast our eyes here and there, let us ransack all the Globe, let us with the greatest accuracy inspect every part thereof, search out the inmost secrets of any of the creatures, let us examine them with all our gauges, measure them with our nicest rules, pry into them with our microscopes and most exquisite instruments, still we find them to bear testimony to their infinite Workman. ”

“ The Bible instructs us that man and other living things, have been placed but a few years upon the earth; and the physical monuments of the world bear witness to the same truth: if the astronomer tells us of myriads of worlds not spoken of in the sacred records; the geologist, in like manner, proves (not by arguments from analogy, but by the incontrovertible evidence of physical phenomena) that there were former conditions of our planet, separated from each other by vast intervals of time, during which man, and the other creatures of his own date, had not been called into being. ”

“ The introduction to these animals, of such aberrations from the type of their respective orders to accommodate deviations from the usual habits of these orders, exhibits a union of compensative contrivances, so similar in their relations, so identical in their objects, and so perfect in the adaptation of each subordinate part, to the harmony and perfection of the whole; that we cannot but recognise throughout them all, the workings of one and the same eternal principle of Wisdom and Intelligence, presiding from first to last over the total fabric of Creation. ”

“ To the mind which looks not to general results in the economy of Nature, the earth may seem to present a scene of perpetual warfare, and incessant carnage: but the more enlarged view, while it regards individuals in their conjoint relations to the general benefit of their own species, and that of other species with which they are associated in the great family of Nature, resolves each apparent case of individual evil, into an example of subservience to universal good. ”

“ From the high preservation in which we find the remains of animals and vegetables of each geological formation, and the exquisite mechanism which appears in many fossil fragments of their organization, we may collect an infinity of arguments, to show that the creatures from which all these are derived were constructed with a view to the varying conditions of the surface of the Earth, and to its gradually increasing capabilities of sustaining more complex forms of organic life, advancing through successive stages of perfection. ”

“ We conceive it undeniable, that we see, in the transition from an Earth peopled by one set of animals to the same Earth swarming with entirely new forms of organic life, a distinct manifestation of creative power transcending the operation of known laws of nature: and it appears to us, that Geology has thus lighted a new lamp along the path of Natural Theology. ”

“ Again, had Geology gone no further than to prove the existence of multifarious examples of Design, its evidences would indeed have been decisive against the Atheist; but if such Design had been manifested only by distinct and dissimilar systems of Organization, and independent Mechanisms, connected together by no analogies, and bearing no relations to one another, or to any existing types in the Animal or Vegetable kingdoms, these demonstrations of Design, although affording evidence of Intelligence and Power, would not have proved a common origin in the Will of one and the same Creator ”

“ Even could it be proved that all existing species are serviceable to man, no such inference could be drawn with respect to those numerous extinct animals which Geology shows to have ceased to live, long before our race appeared upon the earth. It is surely more consistent with sound philosophy, and with all the information that is vouchsafed to us respecting the attributes of the Deity, to consider each animal as having been created first for its own sake, to receive its portion of that enjoyment which the Universal Parent is pleased to impart to each creature that has life ”

“ Whatever alarm therefore may have been excited in the earlier stages of their development, the time is now arrived when Geological discoveries appear to be so far from disclosing any phenomena, that are not in harmony with the arguments supplied by other branches of physical Science, in proof of the existence and agency of One and the same all-wise and all-powerful Creator, that they add to the evidences of Natural Religion links of high importance that have confessedly been wanting, and are now filled up by facts which the investigation of the structure of the Earth has brought to light. ”

“ The secrets of Nature, that are revealed to us, by the history of fossil Organic Remains, form perhaps the most striking results at which we arrive from the study of Geology. It must appear almost incredible to those who have not minutely attended to natural phenomena, that the microscopic examination of a mass of rude and lifeless limestone should often disclose the curious fact, that large proportions of its substance have once formed parts of living bodies. ”

“ To the inhabitants of such districts we speak a language which they fully comprehend, when we describe the crust of the globe as floating on an internal nucleus of molten elements; they have seen these molten elements burst forth in liquid streams of lava; they have felt the earth beneath them quivering and rolling, as if upon the billows of a subterranean sea; they have seen mountains raised and valleys depressed, almost in an instant of time ”

“ The myriads of petrified Remains which are disclosed by the researches of Geology all tend to prove, that our Planet has been occupied in times preceding the Creation of the Human Race, by extinct species of Animals and Vegetables, made up, like living Organic Bodies, of “Clusters of Contrivances,” which demonstrate the exercise of stupendous Intelligence and Power. ”

“ If the great aerial ocean which surrounds the earth be thus charged with the rudiments of life, floating continually amidst the atoms of dust we see twinkling in a sunbeam, and ever ready to return to life as soon as they find a matrix adapted to their development, we have in these conditions of the very air we breathe a system of provisions for the almost infinite dissemination of life throughout the fluids of the present Earth ”

“ Before we enter on the history of fossil animals and vegetables, We must therefore first briefly review the progressive stages of mineral formations; and see how far we can discover in the chemical constitution, and mechanical arrangement of the materials of the earth, proofs of general prospective adaptation to the economy of animal and vegetable life.
As far as our planet is concerned, the first act of creation seems to have consisted in giving origin to the elements of the material world. ”

“ It appears impossible to resist the conclusions as to Unity of Design in a common Author, which are thus attested by such cumulative evidences of Creative Intelligence and Power; both, as infinitely surpassing the most exalted faculties of the human mind, as the mechanisms of the natural world, when magnified by the highest microscopes, are found to transcend the most perfect productions of human art. ”

“ The effect is heightened by the contrast of the coal-black colour of these vegetables, with the light ground-work of the rock to which they are attached. The spectator feels himself transported, as if by enchantment, into the forests of another world ”

“ Natural Religion accords harmoniously with the testimonies of Revelation, in ascribing the origin of the Universe to the will of One eternal, and dominant Intelligence, the Almighty Lord and supreme first cause of all things that subsist—"the same yesterday, to-day and for ever"—"before the Mountains were brought forth, or Ever the Earth and the World were made, God from everlasting and world without End." ”

“ I have felt it important thus to enter into the theory of Artesian Wells, because their more frequent adoption will add to the facilities of supplying fresh Water in many regions of the Earth, particularly in low and level districts, where this prime necessary of Life is inaccessible by any other means; and because the theory of their mode of operation explains one of the most important and most common contrivances in the subterraneous economy of the Globe, for the production of natural springs. ”

“ All perfection has relation to the object proposed to be attained by each form of organization that occurs in nature, and nothing can be called imperfect which fully accomplishes the end proposed: thus a Polype, or an Oyster, are as perfectly adapted to their functions at the bottom of the sea, as the wings of the Eagle are perfect, as organs of rapid passage through the air, and the feet of the stag perfect, in regard to their functions of effecting swift locomotion upon the land. ”